[aeyes]

What university has taught me is to not give up and to keep looking for the solution, no matter how hard the problem is and how little I know. Sometimes there was no choice but to crunch hard math problems for endless hours. Most people give up too easily when they have no natural interest for the type of problem they are facing.

Do I make use of all the material I was shown? No. But it is really nice to have that universal background which, for the majority, I would never have studied on my own. You could ask the same question about middle school or high school - do you really need to know about biology, language or arts to be successful? Do you remember many details? Of course not; general knowledge is still incredible valuable.